Volunteers find blessing in service

More than 200 volunteers created a special dining experience Thursday during the annual Salvation Army Thanksgiving Day celebration. Guests were treated like royalty as volunteers seated them, took orders, served their meals and drinks and spent time with each person.

Men, women and children from all walks of life gathered at Salvation Army, 400 S. Harrison St., to serve and be served a Thanksgiving meal Thursday afternoon.

“The goal is that our guests — not clients, not homeless people — would feel special. It’s about the ambience around the table,” Salvation Army Maj. Harvey Johnson said.

The volunteers and staff at Salvation Army prepared for a week prior to the lunch, which generally serves about 300 people every Thanksgiving.

Lynne Leeson and her three children spent the first part of their Thanksgiving Day volunteering.

“This is our first time,” Leeson said. “We’ve just felt like we’ve been blessed in our lives and we always have a wonderful family Thanksgiving, and I have felt for some time that we needed to try to bless others and help others.”

Leeson said her children were nervous about helping at first.

“Being around strangers makes me uncomfortable,” her son, Parker, 11, explained, but he said he enjoyed helping.

“There’s a job here for everybody,” Leeson said. “My kids are pretty shy, so they found a job they’re pretty comfortable with, and I think it’s something we’ll want to do again in the future.”

Blake Cripps, 17, rounded up 12 people to volunteer at the meal.

“I just enjoy this stuff a lot,” he said. “I think it’s better to go out and help people.”

His mom, Lorie, wasn’t so sure at first.

“He took the initiative,” Lorie said, nodding towards her son. “He’s been wanting to do this, and I told him that would be hard to do because of family — because the family gets together — but he said, ‘Isn’t that the point?’ And so how do you say no to that?”

Luke Danner played worship songs on the guitar while people sat around several large tables, talking with each other and enjoying traditional Thanksgiving dishes such as turkey, sweet potatoes, corn bread dressing, mashed potatoes and green bean casserole.

Dianne Dunn, who helped in the serving line Thursday, has been volunteering at Salvation Army every Thanksgiving for seven years.

“It makes my heart happy,” she said. “At home, my daughter’s gone and the house is empty, so coming here and serving, it kind of fills that void back up.”

Although the Salvation Army serves several hundred meals a day, Thanksgiving Day is still a special time for them, Johnson explained.

“Today we want people to feel like guests at a nice gathering, at a nice place where they get attention and they are the focus of what’s going on,” Johnson explained.

This year, Johnson asked people to volunteer as hosts for each table to facilitate conversation. Others carried dessert trays with an array of sweet treats.

“I’ve had about 300 people come and be our guests today,” he said. “We’ve had almost as many volunteers. So we’ve had a lot of different people come be involved in a lot of ways, which brings us to the focus, which is that we’re blessed, we’re thankful and we share with others.”